Nicknames and necromancers (Daylight time).

Baby Mac. He greets me at the door with a warm smile, holding his arm up slightly, though I can walk underneath it easy to enter his rooms. He can be the Hades to my Orpheus. I just want that one shot, no looking back.

Only Caleb has other plans and the freshly-minted nickname makes me laugh, if only because it isn't one he would voluntarily choose and it took me a moment to understand he didn't say Babydoll.

Who came up with that?

Duncan, actually. 

Amazing. 

He nods his approval, a rare event when it places Lochlan first. I like your dress. He changes tactics and it's bullshit. I'm wearing a faded sage cotton slip dress he hates, with a long smoke-coloured cardigan because it's surprisingly cool, bare feet and my gold cross necklace. I look like anything but what he likes. I roll my eyes and his hands tighten around my arms ever so slightly. Then he looks down and takes a big breath. He lets go of me, dropping to his knees. His head remains bowed to look at the floor, if only his eyes were open.

Caleb-

At your service, he says quietly.

Oh, wow. If I were only a queen instead of a high-tied broken-crowned princess from the worst nickname I ever earned. What is this?

You need to be in charge. Tell me what you want.

So I did. I told him everything, as if he were Santa Claus but in black, who could give me everything on my list as long as I'm a very bad girl instead of very good.

We can do all of this. He looks fierce and reassuring all at once and I exhale violently, making him laugh. Now, Neamhchiontach, tell me what you want from me. 

Forty-eight hours later I am returned to my real life, away from the cool steady heartbeat of the one silently wondering how he can buy my affection when there's no price on my head but at the same time happy to dash my dreams. No Halloween party this year, the times clash with Schuyler and Daniel's big anniversary party tomorrow. My Eurydice isn't getting a second chance and neither am I so I need to learn to be content flush against the unforgiving night, restless in the fur blankets against the second love of my life, if not the first actual, painful crush of my childhood that still surprises me when I think back.

When the darkness lifts and I stir he is grief-stricken but grateful. We'll get everything done. You'll have the life you want. Hades comes around with the sun. Eurydice rises with me and I am victorious. It's a brief faith that will be shattered within moments but in the meantime it makes it all worthwhile. Go back to Lochlan. Tell him I was kind, since I was. 

For once, I remind him.

Cancel whatever I was going to post today.

Because THIS happened.

After playing this dumb game for three years and three months I *finally* caught the only Pokemon I ever wanted.

A Snorlax!!

He's now my buddy but honestly, I'm done. I live in the middle of precisely nowhere and we don't have a blue thingie for balls anywhere nearby let alone any good characters around. This was caught on the way home from the dentist, but not really. I drove eight blocks out of my way and Henry helped keep it busy until I could pull over and take over actually catching it.

He's MASSIVE.

Now I can get on with my life! Thank fucking Jesus says PJ.

5101.

The Devil is concerned, as I went and crawled in with him at five this morning for an extra hour of snoozles and I passed out hard against his neck and if you listen to him tell it, he basically lay there and panicked as I would stop breathing for ridiculously long periods in the dark, gasp for air out of the blue and then do it all over again three minutes later.

It's just a cold, Diabhal. I've been fighting it all fall. 

That's not a cold, Neamhchiontach, but it's usually not this bad. 

Time of year, that's all. 

(I've found my solid gold excuse for everything, as of late. Bad day? Time of year. Feeling not up to doing something? Time of year, I tell them. Didn't laugh at a joke? Time of year, for sure.)

That doesn't work on me.

What doesn't? I play dumb, batting my eyelashes just once so he catches me.

You're adorable, he smiles. I'm very grateful you brought your snoozles to me this morning. It's been quiet in my wing.

Sam's free.

Not that quiet, he corrects with a chuckle. I am concerned about you though.

I know. I say it quietly.

He plants a rather violent kiss on the top of my head, taking my hands in his and pulling me right up to his face. Tonight you spend with me, okay? I just want to see if it is a lot worse or if it's just been a while and I'm misremembering-

You can just ask, you don't need to find an excuse, Diabhal-

Time of year, Bridget, he says and I get it.

Whitman Mondays.

A sharp intake of breath and I'm awake, tense and suspicious of the light. The dust motes dance in the sun shining through the curtains, opened as a way to wake me when the dawn breaks instead of by force.

My first thought, as ever:

He's gone.

I reach out with both hands for my redheaded life raft instead. The tangible. The waking dream. The saviour in a strange land, this place of profound grief. It's so bright and clear. White sheets. Blue skies. Yellow and red leaves up to our ankles, crunching as we walk toward our inevitable demise.

A detour, Lochlan smiles, pulling me toward the lights instead. Toward the happy screams of people who don't know that hungry, unrespected, lowly-compensated people are putting their rides together under the duress of a ticking clock. That your life goes into their hands the moment the bars are lowered.

Do you care? No. That's the thrill part. And when you survive you'll come back for more, until we've turned your pockets inside out and all that's left are three nickels and a single corner-bent ride ticket.

I've been resurrected by those lights so many times and it's devastating that they only work for me.

Not only just for you, Lochlan corrects as he pulls the quilts up to our necks, turning me away, pulling me into his arms against his heart, closing his eyes to sleep a few moments longer, his breath exhaling against my hair.

Sleep a little longer. The rescue boat has high sides, warm lights and capable captains.

I nod against his head. Sleep. Sleep is that elusive shoreline I can never seem to reach, floating just offshore as if a giant anchor is keeping us from getting anywhere, but no one is strong enough to lift it.

He is, though. Oh captain. My captain. Steer me from the endless elegies and drowning grief.

Come take a ride then. I fall into my forever dream where he's standing in his jeans and a green Atari t-shirt at the operator box for the Ferris wheel, a smile on his face, curls sticking to his neck and forehead in the hot summer evening and I run in his direction, knowing I'll get the last ride of the night whether it's on this trip or the next.

I suddenly am keenly aware that it's not only Jake I'm missing, but that heck of a life we lived before everything got so sad, when I was so little Lochlan would whisper some of the lines from Walt Whitman's Spontaneous Me into my ear until I would blush, overheating and scramble to get away from his warm lips against my skin, wondering how dirty the words were going to get and he would laugh and pull me back in close and God I wish for that again so hard it hurts.

He pulls me ever closer. I can't remember any of the words but we're still here being wild-bees, he says and we start to laugh until we shake.

Nothing but a good time.

Tonight we're raking the ginkgo leaves from the front gate, where they pile up in the wind from the neighbor up the hill who has the trees. I don't mind. I love raking leaves. I do it slowly, though, as my elbow has never been so happy about it, but I do it anyway. The sun was setting, it was around eight degrees and mild, I was wearing Lochlan's work jacket and my belly is full from a single brunch meal today at Troll's (where, no big deal but pretty sure Bret! Michaels! was eating at the next table over), which was crazy-busy but always perfect and worth the wait.

Last night when Sam came up Lochlan let him down gently and then Ben appeared at less than eleven, surprising me with lighting the candles by the time I came out from brushing my teeth.

Hey, little tiny stranger. 

Hey, big huge stranger. 

Hey guys, remember me? Lochlan says and we all laugh softly. Sometimes this feels weird, but not tonight. We enjoy our own inside joke and then Ben pulls me in for a long breathtaking kiss and I never want it to stop and then Lochlan is on me and Ben distracts me constantly to the point where I can't concentrate and I'm losing my mind by the time he takes over, pulling me up away from earth, into his arms, off the bed so he's controlling our movements and he finally puts the focus back where I want it and by the time Lochlan returns and touches me the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I explode in a burst of goosebumps and release.  

Boom, I whisper in Ben's face and he laughs, again so softly I almost miss it.

Boom, he nods.

Oh my God. So good, I reassure them. They don't want me to get weirded out or overwhelmed or too tired. Overstimulated. Overunder. Upside down and inside out.

Lochlan gives me a final kiss. Sleep. We can sleep until late tomorrow-

Church-

Don't worry about it. 

Sam's going to wonder. 

We talked to him. Doing a little less work and having a little more fun this time. See what happens, Lochlan smiles at me with his We're about to have an adventure smile, something I could never resist.

Still can't.
 

(She was a right violent thug that came in the night loaded for bear and ready for a fight.)

It worked a little too well. Maybe I grew to expect it, to even think I deserve it. That my happy ending was going to come. That this make-believe beauty in dirt was real. That there was something that made it worth it. All the dark, all the tough parts, that there would be a field of flowers at the end and instead it's just more dirt. As if someone came in and dug them all up in the night.

This fairytale has a knife to my throat and the ransom it requests is my heart.

(So give it what it wants.)

(No.)

It wasn't the real fairy tale. You can't sustain that kind of love. It doesn't stay fresh. Only when it's weighted down with preserves and paint to keep it pretty long past its date does it last. Sometimes it's not as blinding but who wants to be blind when you can see the potential.

Anyone can grow a field of flowers. I proved it here, where everyone from the real estate agents to the landscapers to the longtime residents said not to grow anything save for native hardy tropicals and even then it's a struggle, because we're too close to the sea and there's too much wind and it's salty and the soil isn't so much soil but sand and then clay and then rock.

But I did it.

Everything grew. Again. Year over year. I don't even know if I'm good at it but I'm so stubborn. Who needs a gift when you have determination? I wondered if maybe I forced him to love me. Forced him to stick around and grow and flourish and dug my own grave in the process, looking over my shoulder every second shovelful to make sure he was still there. And when he was ready I picked him and then the season ended and the snow came and it covered over everything so you never even knew there was ever a garden there.

It doesn't snow here, and that's why we came. It was a fresh start in the warmth of the sun but back to the sea (even if it's the wrong one) and we had some loose ties to the place (Lochlan was born here, I've been here, Schuyler and Ben had some work here and Caleb didn't want to be somewhere cold when he retired) so the garden will grow because it has every chance and it should.

Not every fairytale is a kind one. The brothers Grimm taught us that. What they didn't teach is that you can actually write your own instead of living someone elses'. Or maybe you can join one already in progress and oddly it's a perfect fit.

Stop daydreaming, Peanut and pull those vines, would you? Lochlan is up to his knees in dirt and happy as ever, that we're doing this. That I came out with him this morning. That we have a garden bigger than anything we ever dreamed, and even though it's a full time effort it nourishes us without any outside help. But we're growing love, even as we're reverting this field back to dirt, tilling it over for a fresh start.

And it's working.

You think it's working?

I'd rather be here with you now than anywhere else. 

What if Jacob walked through the gate right now? (Lochlan doesn't do this. Why'd he do this?)

It stings and my head buzzes but I don't wait to answer. I'd tell him to leave. He's not welcome here anymore.

I don't wait to see if he accepts my answer. There is rosemary to harvest. But it's the truth, even if no one believes me.

Still here.

Today is wind and sunshine, leftover warm pakoras and stilton cheese on crackers but there's only a tiny bit left. I took my feast out to the front porch with a notebook and my laptop to start making Christmas shopping/making/baking/cooking lists and Caleb followed me to hold the door, noting my snack with amusement.

You're missing only a glass of champagne, he says.

Do we have any?

I'll have to order a case. I can pour you some juice instead? 

Maybe just water. 

He returns in a few minutes and by then I am installed cozily on the swinging bench with the big Mexican blanket wrapped around me, my snacks on the table, laptop open, notebook open, new pen at the ready (the pen came in the mail. It says I LOVE ANIMALS <3 BCSPCA on it and I'm keeping it forever. I gave Caleb the donation form to fill out but he doesn't get the  pen.

He puts the water on the table and points out the irony of a laptop and a notebook.

I'm a tangible soul. I need tangible notes.

Indeed, he says quietly and kisses the top of my head as he makes his exit. I can be alone here. Four people at least are within earshot and I don't have keys for the trucks or my shoes so it's not like I'm heading out. They think it's self-care but really it's just a chore I have to get done because time is running out. Christmas is two months away.

Focus on that, they say. Good girl. 

Yeah, this isn't self-care, it's panic-mode but yes, I'm going to focus on it and Halloween can come and go and maybe by Remembrance Day (which isn't on the day you think) I'll exhale and can pull it all together.

Or maybe I'll lose my mind.

Honestly, looking around this wouldn't be a bad way to check out. Too bad I hate Joel's pills. I hate his advice. I hate that he's right all the time. I hate that he's cute. I hate that he's here. That's the hardest part. I hate that he won't leave, by Lochlan's request, and is staying next door but spending his days over here, just for a couple of weeks. Just in case, though Lochlan still gets Alpha call, and I'm still completely unaccountable for all of it, even as it falls to me now to fix myself or be fixed at some point before it all goes to hell.

Hell is the reason this is so hard, and so if the Devil wants to keep me in champagne for the rest of my days then I'll try and take care of myself every chance I get. He may not have gotten any points with the handbags but at least the boys can share the champagne. No one turns down champagne because there's always something to celebrate, even if today the only thing is the wind.

The perfect ending to this peace of shit story, he said. ( I wasn't watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again, I swear).

Thou knowst how guiltless first I met thy flame
When Love approached me under Friendship's name
My fancy formed thee of angelic kind,
Some emanation of the all-beauteous mind
Those smiling eyes, attempting every day
Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day
Guiltless I gazed
Heaven listened while you sung
And truths divine came mended from that tongue
From lips like those what precept failed to move?
Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love
Back through the paths of pleasing sense I ran
Nor wished an Angel whom I loved a Man
Dim and remote the joys of saints I see
Nor envy them, that heaven I lose for thee

Joel remains unimpressed. You've gone backwards in time. I thought Baudelaire was your favorite but you're quoting Pope at length?

Baudelaire is my favorite. Always.

I would have thought you would go from Baudelaire to Frost, maybe. Not Pope.

And cross a whole ocean to do so? Never. Keats would have been a more mainstream choice.

Overdone.

Agreed.

Joel and I get along stupidly and like all the same things.Too bad we liked each other so much, or I would have maybe gotten better. Or maybe not. Not like he doesn't stick rigorously to his extensive training but now he can do it without the boundaries placed upon him by the field. Now he can do it on a personal level. What's on your mind, Bridget? Besides tears that delight, and all that stuff. 

She was moved-

We all should be that receptive of our thoughts.

I thought we were supposed to quash them and get on with it. 

Ah. Sam has been around again. 

Sam never leaves. 

Sam has a different take on things. He believes in faith and not things like Complicated Grief.

I laugh. At every turn Joel hauls out his labels like a mad filist. This grief isn't complicated, and I've told him that before. It's simple, exceedingly easy and has crushed me flat. Fuck life, I'm busy living death over here. Did Sam say something that's given you pause? 

Wow, you sound like Caleb. I gaze up at him in wonder. All he's missing the ever-so-slight English accent and he'd be there today but everyone is the antichrist right now because today Jacob is the King of the Kingdom of Sorrows and I'm the only Jacobian, as it were.

She was watching movies she shouldn't have been watching and now she's trying to decide if we should be permitted to hide her memories from her. She's worried she'll lose the rest and as ever, she still believes the Devil can bring him back. 

Joel looks from Lochlan to me and I nod slowly. Yup. Sounds about right. Sounds like a rainy Thursday twelve years later, though it feels like it's been twelve minutes and I'd like to peel my skin off and roll in salt just to get away from it, thanks.

Bridget, I think we need to talk about this. Can you call a family meeting? 

I look at Lochlan who nods and picks up his phone. Principals only from the Collective, for Bridget's Brain is a private matter after all.

Just like that, I'm a sideshow again. 

Nothing like that-

BOOM. I whisper it but they've moved on. I look at Jake for support but he's looking at Joel. There's no love lost from his side of the veil. Joel doesn't know Jacob knows and I'm certainly not going to tell him. Jake looks back and me as shakes his head. The problem is I don't know if he means Don't be worse, don't tell them it's this bad or Stop it and get on with your life, Bridget.

I watch him as he fades and then I realize they're watching me stare at the wall.

Sorry. I'm tired today. I zoned out a little just now. 

Have you been sleeping? 

Probably not enough, I lie. This the problem. I can tell them what they want to hear. They can check off all their boxes. I've moved on. I've done the work. I know all the realities of my life. I know death is an imminent visitor to us all. I'm logical and reasonable but I'm also something else in there that I don't want to address much that happily chucked a wrench in every last gear that was going to turn smoothly and now won't even turn.

When you want to do this? 

Now, if possible. If not then tonight. 

I wish you'd stop gathering my friends together to tell them I'm crazy. 

I wish you'd stop pretending you're fine when you're not. 

Can we at least charge admission? I'm tired of being the freak for free.

I love you like a love song Baby.

Duncan and I are singing this morning. Sappy love songs. Or maybe they're hate songs. I have trouble breathing through this song, especially when I'm getting over a cold and any part I can't pick up again PJ is filling in perfectly. I think this is the thing I love most about the boys, is their ability to be shameless in keeping up with all the lovesongs and broken heart songs out there, just for me.

This morning we're learning a new one, as the Internet is a beautiful place and while I'm sure you want to know I am so damn metal, drinking my coffee out of a skull mug that changes from black to white when filled with a hot liquid, wearing an Opeth t-shirt that's a size too small but looks amazing, hair in curls, mascara perfect since it's only six in the morning and it hasn't had any time to smudge yet, tattoos right up past my collar and into my hair behind my ears and down to my knuckles to the point where I look like I'm wearing a turtleneck from a distance and I wouldn't change any of them now, even as the ones that I was having removed and reworked stubbornly refuse to look different to me, I'm still a huge sap.

We're avidly discussing the diss from Hailey Baldwin to Selena Gomez. We've watched Selena's new video (Lose you to Love Me) again every time someone new walks into the kitchen and we have decided that Hailey is young and jealous and Justin totally married her to get back at Selena, who has thirty-eight million more fans than he does on Instagram. I didn't believe it either but then August showed me the numbers and if you bring receipts I will accept that I was wrong.

(For the love of God don't go hunting down August on IG. I'll kill you, just like Hailey said.)

But they don't have a prenup either which is a reckless thing in this day and age. I don't either, if you're curious. Justin and I both like to live on the edge, I guess.

(Or maybe it is true love.)

I'm only rich on paper and though you can buy my affections a little too easily when my magpie tendencies toward glittery pretty things (like Caleb) come out I also have ironclad peace of mind in that it's not just me now and Lochlan will never have to worry about money again.

It's the absolute least I could ever do for him, though warned that his jealousy is going to light this point and every last one of us on fire I'll still burn with a smile on my face. This is not to say I'm secretly getting back at Caleb by marrying Lochlan, it's more of an effort to point out that true love is true love and even as you change and grow and shit happens and everything goes to hell, you'll always have that soulmate and he is yours forever.

That's my Lochlan.

Though he's refusing to sing today. He's still mad about the purse thing, though I think he's secretly thrilled I'm singing instead of crying today. What he doesn't know is that the acoustics in this hole are incredible for singing today. I'm still down here, I'm just acting for the crowd. He taught me a little too well, I guess, as he's fooled too.

You'd be wrong, he says, just loud enough for me to hear. Ah. Okay. Figures.

I actually found the brass knuckles in the old garage but he doesn't believe me.

The handbags were taken back. Of course they were. I'm currently allowed a shortened lanyard and my phone case that holds a few cards plus my childrens' graduation photos. I can put a lipgloss in my pocket, if I have one, or it stays at home. Anything else is relegated to a pocket belonging to one of the boys, because if I carry a handbag it will be full of weapons by the week's end and I'm not supposed to have any.

I plead my case a dozen times if not a hundred. The pepper spray is for dogs. The brass knuckles is for muggers. The knives are in case someone attacks me or I feel unsafe if I'm alone-

Lochan turns on one heel and is in my face. When are you alone? 

He's not wrong. A girl should be able to protect herself though. I've had self-defence classes but it didn't work. I manage a hundred pounds on a good day and while it's nice to say you can protect yourself or maybe I had a bad teacher I just can't. It was never enough. I had a big dream at one point that I was going to beat the shit out of Caleb the next time he touched me. I was going to get him to the brink, strangle him with his own designer necktie and then at the last second, just as his face was turning purple and puffy, let him live, always to remember that I grew up to finally fight back. So let's face it, all of the weapons were to protect me from him, and then I happily get into his car with empty pockets and let him sprinkle sugar all over me.

Who gave you the brass knuckles?

Incriminating no one that time, I lie. Ebay. 

Lochlan laughs, not nicely though. Make up your mind, Peanut. Protect them or yourself. 

Both. All of us. 

From who? 

Me. 

Each other, you mean.

No, me. 

He was supposed to take you for a drive, get an ice cream. Listen to some non-triggering music on the radio. Babysit until dinner and then I would be home. 

We did that. 

No, you didn't. He bought you a bunch of ridiculous handbags and reminded you that you mistakenly think you are beholden to him-

I'm not-

Yeah, I'm not either. I'm not buying it. I'm not accepting it. And your ten dollar bag is just fine. (It's a pink velvet corduroy tote bag. I put a zipper in the top. It's soft and huge and holds everything and looks pretty. Beat a Dior or three any day.) You're not yourself, Peanut.

 Because of Jake-

No, because of YOU. I think I'm done tiptoeing around the ghosts and am going to focus on fixing the living. Starting with myself and then with you. And you were never a fancy handbag kind of girl. Remember? I had your lifesavers and your library card in my pocket. Every day, Bridget. Every single day.